


Anodyne

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not until she is thirty-two that Margot Tenenbaum discovers who she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anodyne

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Seana Renay

 

 

_**In her tenth year, Margot Tenenbaum discovers the African Wing of the Public Archive holds secrets like shadows.** _

Richie is warm and smells like root beer. Against her ankle, his big toe is a soft weight. It's dark, cramped underneath their bench; the walls painted with shadows from the animals on display. No one has thought to look for them here and the wildlife doesn't mind.

"No two zebras are alike," Margot whispers. His ear tickles her mouth when she turns her head.

"Really?" Richie asks sleepily.

"They each have their own pattern," she replies, folding her arms tight to her chest.

"Interesting," Richie mumbles, tugging the sleeping bag tighter around their shoulders. "So they can tell each other apart."

"Yes," she agrees. "That way they know who they are."

Richie's shoulder is solid under her cheek. She doesn't close her eyes until his breath deepens with sleep.

  
  
 _ **Richie Tenenbaum's artistic debut is at age eleven.**_  
  
The Tenenbaums discover Richie is an artist on a Tuesday. There is nothing remarkable about the day - only that it is Tuesday.  
  
Margot steps onto the landing in the ballroom and finds Richie on a ladder. The banister is glass-smooth under her hand. A canvas of paper and cloth covers the wall.  
  
"I didn't know you painted," she remarks.   
  
He says nothing. A picture tilts to the left. Richie straightens it with one finger.   
  
"They're all me," she says with blank surprise, staring at the wall.   
  
"Yes," he softly answers, and does not turn around.  
  


  
  
 _ **In which a fall is precipitated by one short step.**_  
  
She smokes her first cigarette one week later, on the roof. Archer Avenue lies below her like a footprint.   
  
The lighter strikes high, the flame catches her finger. A red blister rises. She smokes one cigarette - she does not cough through a single drag - before sucking the finger into her mouth. It's hot on her tongue, Satan's hand reaching inside her.   
  
Most of the afternoon passes as she pries a brick loose from the chimney. She uses a knife she took from the kitchen. The mortar chinks sullenly against the blade, but eventually, it gives in.   
  
The pack of cigarettes fits inside the hole like a baby in its cradle, a babe in swaddling clothes. A butterfly in a cocoon.   
  
She kneels facing north. Her eyes are closed, but she knows he's there.   
  
"Hey, what are you doing up here?" Richie asks. The small door to the roof makes no sound; he approaches like fog.  
  
"You found me," she says, opening her eyes to find his smile wide as water. His bird is on his arm.  
  
"Mordecai wants some fresh air," he replies, settling with a grunt beside her.   
  
Her skin stretches tight on her throat when she tilts her head toward the sky. It is a shaking hand with gnarled fingers, grey coils of cloud that tremble in the wind.  
  
Richie squints up with her. "It's gonna rain," he remarks.   
  
Margot shrugs; her coat is a nest of dead animals. "Maybe." She points to the clouds and he follows her hand. "That one is a silent cornicen. And that one - " her finger sweeps to the left, " - is a weeping metaphor."  
  
"You burned your finger," he says suddenly, drawing her hand down into his. His hand is pale and careful as it cradles hers.  
  
"No I didn't," she says, looking directly at him. She does not draw back her hand.  
  
"Margot," he implores. His eyes could be the ocean. "You - "   
  
Mordecai squawks, wings flapping impatiently. Richie drops her hand and stands in a swoop of feathers.   
  
His arm is a sword piercing the sky. Mordecai is a proud shield.   
  
"Go, Mordecai, go!" Richie cries out, sending the bird dazzling into the air.  
  
The shape of her first cigarette is still on her lips. "He'll just come back, you know. He always does." Her fingers itch to touch the brick.  
  
Richie's shoulders slump when he sighs, "Yeah."  
  
Mordecai makes only one loop against the swelling clouds before landing at their feet.   
  


  
  
_**Margot is thirteen, and night covers all wrongs.**_  
  
She has cat eyes; she likes darkness. She watches lightning fight with rain; tree branches as they fling themselves upon the shore of her window.  
  
His voice is a harp when he whispers her name. "Margot," Richie says, even as she feels him stir under her blankets. "The storm is - it's too loud in the attic. Can...can I..."  
  
She answers with her hand, reaching across the bed to cover his.   
  
"Thanks," he exhales, and curls beside her.  
  


  
  
 _ **One year later, she learns no real truth is ever gained from mere knowledge.**_  
  
She returns with one less finger and no more insight than she'd taken with her.  
  
"You went to find your family?" Richie asks, genuinely puzzled. "But I'd've gone with you, Margot. I would have helped you. You should have asked me."  
  
"I had to do it alone." She taps Morse code onto the table with her new wooden finger.  
  
Richie shakes his head, spoons soup into his mouth. "Yeah, but - " he slurps around a noodle, "you lost your finger."  
  
"It makes me unique," she replies, smiling. Her face feels raw, unused. _That was my first real smile_ , she thinks.  
  
Richie is concerned - he's never been able to control that brow, the slant into his forehead.   
  
"Did you find what you wanted?" he asks. There is a spot of broth on his bottom lip.  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
Richie throws his spoon into his bowl; it clatters in rhythm with her still tapping finger. He clenches his hands in fists on the table, glares at her.  
  
"Well, we're your family, anyway." He leans toward her, fingers uncurling like a blossom. His hand hovers over hers. "I'm your brother, don't forget that."  
  
"How could I?" she asks, turning to look out the window.   
  


  
  
_**At fifteen, she fears underneath her heart there beats nothing.**_  
  
Her first produced play is a success, ridiculously enough.   
  
She knows better than to trust anyone who calls her 'genius'. There is no genius to her, to her play. There are only her words, her ideas, and the herd of cow-people who believe them.   
  
It is not the first play she has written - nor is the one from her eleventh birthday, but that is a fact she will keep to herself. Her first play is an untitled bundle of paper in a faded grey box underneath the third floorboard in her closet. It is tied with string she found in the garden.  
  
The inscription says simply: For Richie.  
  


  
  
 _ **Margot spends twelve years running, but ends up home anyway.**_  
  
She hasn't written a play in two years. Richie has been playing the circuit for nine. It is no coincidence that she returned home when she did - she will no longer miss his matches.  
  
While he's playing, he never looks at her in the stands - she is careful to keep her gaze hooded, down. She will only meet his eye when he hits the winning match shot, and nod, once. He always raises his hand and then looks away, smiling for the cameras.  
  
Every time she sits at her typewriter, she only sees his smile. There are no words she can write that will ever equal that, so she no longer tries.  
  
She refuses Raleigh the privilege of a honeymoon. They have been married less than twenty-four hours, and they are here, watching Richie.   
  
He has lost every game; the end of the match is near. He has shed himself of shoes, one sock, and she can no longer feel the metal bench on which she sits.  
  
Raleigh is a rumble in her ear, his mouth forming words that she does not hear.   
  
Here she sits watching her brother throw his racket to the ground, here she keeps watch as he stumbles, his face a contorted composition of pain. Richie breaks himself before her and here she sits beside her new husband.  
  
Richie won't stop looking at her. He will not stop _looking_ at her. She won't think of it. She cannot think of him, of them, of - whatever she sees right now in his eyes, in the way he crumples into himself, how he twists himself inside out.  
  
She clutches Raleigh's hand more tightly. She can make this marriage work.  
  


  
  
 _ **Five years later, she can no longer fold herself in half.**_  
  
Her bed is cold, even with the extra blankets. She cannot stop touching her lips, she cannot wipe the taste of Richie from her mouth.   
  
She has not cried since the evening of her eleventh birthday. She did not eat any cake that night - Royal's rejection had left taste enough.   
  
She did not cry when she saw Richie, an ashen hull against the white sheets of the hospital bed. She did not cry when he showed her the blood tracks on his arm. They were an angry streaked sunset, red and deep; he was thorough with the blade.  
  
When the door opens, it squeaks to a 38-degree angle. Just enough for her to see the dark head peek inside.  
  
"Margot - " Richie begins.   
  
"Yes," she interrupts, pulling the blankets from her body. "Yes," she tells him, extending her arm toward him in the dark. "Yes," she repeats, as he wraps his bandaged arms around her and pulls her close.  
  
She lies beside him, his body solid and real against hers. She does not know what to say, but she does cry.   
  
Her tears against his shoulder murmur 'I love you.' The tremble in her breath confesses 'I have no idea what we're doing'. Her hand clutching his hospital gown implores 'You have to tell me how this works.'  
  
"Margot, it's okay," Richie soothes, as he strokes his hand over her hair. "I'm okay."  
  
She sniffles into his neck, presses as close to him as she can.   
  
"I smoke," she whispers.   
  
She can feel his smile against her forehead. "I know," he replies, and his hand never stops stroking her hair.   
  
"I've slept with lots of men. Women, too," she says more urgently.   
  
"Margot," he says softly, kissing her brow. "I know."   
  
He pulls the blankets over them. "Go to sleep," he tells her, so she does.  
  


  
  
 _ **Forever is a promise.**_  
  
When their mother marries Henry, Margot is standing across the room from Richie. He lifts his head over the vows, and winks.   
  
He smiles at her when Etheline says 'I do', and she clutches her coat tight to her chest, so no one will see her heart beating out of her skin.  
  


  
  
 _ **On the occasion of their father's funeral, Margot and Richie Tenenbaum climb to the roof on Archer Avenue for the final time.**_  
  
Mordecai keeps watch on the low railing of the roof. Royal Tenenbaum is not two hours in the ground, and the rain has turned to mist.   
  
Richie and Margot watch the cars below scuttle down the street like beetles.   
  
"Are you happy?" she asks him, passing the cigarette.   
  
Richie takes a drag. His fingers are rough and dry when he passes it back. "Yeah," he says, finally. "I am. Are...are you?"  
  
Margot takes a deep breath, throws the cigarette over the edge of the roof and pulls her coat tight between her hands.   
  
"I know who I am," she replies. She leans into him, turns so her nose brushes his neck when he puts his arm around her. "I know who I love," she whispers against his skin.   
  
He squeezes her tight, and they stand there until dark.  
  


  
  
 _ **The garden blooms in early Spring.**_  
  
The string falls apart under her fingers; the pages are yellow with age and denial.   
  
She holds it before him.   
  
"What's this?" Richie asks, drawing her into his lap.   
  
His neck is soft under her hand, his arm firm at her waist.  
  
"For you," she tells him. "My first real play."   
  
"Oh," he says, surprised. His hands smooth over the worn manuscript before he looks up at her.   
  
"Thanks," he whispers hoarsely, and when Richie kisses her, Margot smiles.  
  


 


End file.
